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Azeh

The Frequency of Updates

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Before 0.59, we used to see stable updates (not hotfixes) every 1-2 months. 0.59 to 0.60 took 6 months, and 0.60 to 0.61 is currently at 4 months and counting. While these two updates contain engine changes and therefore took/take longer, why aren't there smaller updates instead of having one large?

Basically, if something is finished (for example the server queue or the new server browser), why isn't it pushed to stable/experimental instead of having to wait until whatever time consuming thing is finished? The same goes for new items, features, map changes etc. 
Wouldn't this be better for both the players and the developers since it keeps players happy while allowing people to report bugs and such? Personally I'd probably play the game more often if this was the case, cause right now I'm playing other games while waiting for a new DayZ update.

Edited by Azeh
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27 minutes ago, Azeh said:

Before 0.59, we used to see stable updates (not hotfixes) about every 1-2 months. 0.59 to 0.60 took 6 months, and 0.60 to 0.61 is currently at 4 months and counting. While these two updates contain engine changes and therefore took/take longer, why aren't there smaller updates instead of having one large?

Basically, if something is finished (for example the server queue or the new server browser), why isn't it pushed to stable/experimental instead of having to wait until whatever time consuming thing is finished? The same goes for new items, features, map changes etc. 
Wouldn't this be better for both the players and the developers since it keeps players happy while allowing people to report bugs and such? Personally I'd probably play the game more often if this was the case, cause right now I'm playing other games while waiting for a new DayZ update.

I have to be honest, this will be directly going to graveyard, but whatever, let me express my opinion. I think devs are doing great job, but really, if they are going to have 40 other updates to reach 1.0 it'll take them 4 other years to finish this with this speed. It's unacceptable. Triple A game and this speed.... God.... Sometimes I just assume they are lazy as fuck.

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I don't understand why people think that because we're not getting lots updates to DayZ it means that the game isn't being developed. It's not the devs job to give us as many updates as possible. It's to get the game to 1.0 in the best way for them.

Now I'm not saying I don't want more updates, I think everyone does. But if giving us an update every other week would slow down development towards an overall finished game, then I'm fine with having less updates.

Edited by oliverplottwist
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23 minutes ago, oliverplottwist said:

I don't understand why people think that because we're not getting lots updates to DayZ it means that the game isn't being developed. It's not the devs job to give us as many updates as possible. It's to get the game to 1.0 in the best way for them.

Now I'm not saying I don't want more updates, I think everyone does. But if giving us an update every other week would slow down development towards an overall finished game, then I'm fine with having less updates.

People just want something to talk shit about. I'm not sure if people are too dumb to realize, or just ignore the fact that DayZ isn't your normal game because of the technology/engine changes they're doing. It's going to take longer but a lot of people just call it abandoned/money grab for that reason (Reddit is a shitshow right now - https://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/57qymf/1_update_this_whole_year_in_an_early_access_game/). Despite certain updates taking a long time, I know they're working on the game. I'm not asking for weekly updates, but I just wish they went back to stable updates every 1-2 months.

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I know the devs are doing their best, but we shouldn't be getting just 1 update this year. For the size of this project I was expecting a little bit more

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I would say that the reason why we're not getting steady or small updates is because .61 changes so much that trying to release it as small chunks would just not work, things inter-depending on one another and the like.  I'd also so that we're not getting any new 'content' because anything else they have would need the new engine in it's entirety or would just be 'filler' stuff that we don't really need at the moment and would be detracting.  I mean at the moment do we really need 16 different types of bolt action rifles when zombies aren't even fully functional?  They need to focus on the big stuff so we can finally move out of dreaded Alpha  stage and into Beta so we can finally start seeing the 'regular' content updates and bug fixes.

2 hours ago, Just Caused said:

I have to be honest, this will be directly going to graveyard, but whatever, let me express my opinion. I think devs are doing great job, but really, if they are going to have 40 other updates to reach 1.0 it'll take them 4 other years to finish this with this speed. It's unacceptable. Triple A game and this speed.... God.... Sometimes I just assume they are lazy as fuck.

That's not how updates work, there's not 40 more updates till 1.0. There will be as many as there will take, if there's 40 more updates it won't turn some magic speedometer over to 1.0 now we release, it'll be 0.100 update.

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5 hours ago, Azeh said:

Before 0.59, we used to see stable updates (not hotfixes) every 1-2 months. 0.59 to 0.60 took 6 months, and 0.60 to 0.61 is currently at 4 months and counting. While these two updates contain engine changes and therefore took/take longer, why aren't there smaller updates instead of having one large?

Basically, if something is finished (for example the server queue or the new server browser), why isn't it pushed to stable/experimental instead of having to wait until whatever time consuming thing is finished? The same goes for new items, features, map changes etc. 
Wouldn't this be better for both the players and the developers since it keeps players happy while allowing people to report bugs and such? Personally I'd probably play the game more often if this was the case, cause right now I'm playing other games while waiting for a new DayZ update.

Fair question Azeh - and before I head to bed I'll try and give some perspective.

At the point we're at with development, we're effectively nearing merge time for the major engine modules that have been worked on. You saw it with the new renderer, and will be seeing it to a much smaller degree with the audio technology (0.61) moved over from the awesome dudes working on Arma - and currently the engine team are all cracking away on things such as physics, and the new animation system (which represents a blocker for a very large amount of content and overall changes to how the base game plays). Getting closer to (and the time approaching where we are now) these Enfusion changes being merged into DayZ's main trunk means that implementing changes in legacy SQF (which will die a horrible death with the merge to Enforce Script), or on the old animation system, hierarchy, and so on is a waste of development time - and will only serve to slow the project down even more. 
We (and I) completely understand how it can seem like nothing is happening while this stuff is being done - and completely understand how frustrating that is. Personally, I apologize for the frustration - but there is nothing that can be done about it, aside from us on the development team putting heads down and moving full steam ahead.

To give you a little perspective on the other side of the fence, it can be frustrating for a designer (for example) to be presented with spending a good amount of time investigating a non game breaking issue in SQF, when that designer knows that absolutely all of that script/system will (and is being) be rewritten in the new scripting language. It could also be incredibly frustrating for that designer if Eugen or I were to go to Peter (our Design Lead) and push him to implement a new system (lets say.. soft skills) in the old language and hierarchy in *addition* to the new language, and get it to a stable enough point on SQF that it is functional for the users on Steam. Essentially, any further work that is put into new features or support on old technology (animation, scripting, etc) is work that while enjoyable for those testing on Steam - is ultimately work that gets us no closer to (and slows us down on the path towards) the final product.

As far as why some smaller things don't get pushed sooner, like the server browser - Sometimes it is a matter of dependencies, like I mentioned earlier. Other times its as simple as not overcomplicating the build and testing pipeline. You can only branch so many times before you make your pipeline over complicated, and cumbersome to deal with. (Not to mention tracking down any issues within said pipeline).

I hope my late night ramblings answer some of your questions - if not, I'll be back on the forums in the morning to try and make sense of it.

Infact - I will try and pester Eugen tomorrow to jump in on this thread, as the pipeline and update scheduling is a large portion of his job. 

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4 hours ago, Just Caused said:

I have to be honest, this will be directly going to graveyard, but whatever, let me express my opinion. I think devs are doing great job, but really, if they are going to have 40 other updates to reach 1.0 it'll take them 4 other years to finish this with this speed. It's unacceptable. Triple A game and this speed.... God.... Sometimes I just assume they are lazy as fuck.

You're welcome to express your opinion here Just. There is nothing with your post that would get it sent to the graveyard .. with the exception of implying the developers are "lazy as fuck" - keep your criticism constructive and yourself open to discussion and you'll have no problem.

Couple things though - We're not a AAA title, nor is Bohemia a AAA studio. (Although I appreciate the implication from both :) ).

Additionally, as someone below mentioned - build numbers do not equal the amount of builds required to get to 1.0. It is merely a numerical byproduct of the build process that allows us to keep track of, and organize builds. To give you an example, I believe we hit Steam with .. 0.28? 

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3 hours ago, Hicks_206 (DayZ) said:

Fair question Azeh - and before I head to bed I'll try and give some perspective.

At the point we're at with development, we're effectively nearing merge time for the major engine modules that have been worked on. You saw it with the new renderer, and will be seeing it to a much smaller degree with the audio technology (0.61) moved over from the awesome dudes working on Arma - and currently the engine team are all cracking away on things such as physics, and the new animation system (which represents a blocker for a very large amount of content and overall changes to how the base game plays). Getting closer to (and the time approaching where we are now) these Enfusion changes being merged into DayZ's main trunk means that implementing changes in legacy SQF (which will die a horrible death with the merge to Enforce Script), or on the old animation system, hierarchy, and so on is a waste of development time - and will only serve to slow the project down even more. 
We (and I) completely understand how it can seem like nothing is happening while this stuff is being done - and completely understand how frustrating that is. Personally, I apologize for the frustration - but there is nothing that can be done about it, aside from us on the development team putting heads down and moving full steam ahead.

To give you a little perspective on the other side of the fence, it can be frustrating for a designer (for example) to be presented with spending a good amount of time investigating a non game breaking issue in SQF, when that designer knows that absolutely all of that script/system will (and is being) be rewritten in the new scripting language. It could also be incredibly frustrating for that designer if Eugen or I were to go to Peter (our Design Lead) and push him to implement a new system (lets say.. soft skills) in the old language and hierarchy in *addition* to the new language, and get it to a stable enough point on SQF that it is functional for the users on Steam. Essentially, any further work that is put into new features or support on old technology (animation, scripting, etc) is work that while enjoyable for those testing on Steam - is ultimately work that gets us no closer to (and slows us down on the path towards) the final product.

As far as why some smaller things don't get pushed sooner, like the server browser - Sometimes it is a matter of dependencies, like I mentioned earlier. Other times its as simple as not overcomplicating the build and testing pipeline. You can only branch so many times before you make your pipeline over complicated, and cumbersome to deal with. (Not to mention tracking down any issues within said pipeline).

I hope my late night ramblings answer some of your questions - if not, I'll be back on the forums in the morning to try and make sense of it.

Infact - I will try and pester Eugen tomorrow to jump in on this thread, as the pipeline and update scheduling is a large portion of his job. 

I see the points about not releasing any stuff that will just get replaced, but are there any small changes that could be released in between releases of major features, with minimal effect on development of said features? I.E a quick update that adds a few new items or some map changes etc that are already done, and would not have to be completely rethought with future changes in the engine. How dependant to the major systems being implemented are these smaller changes?

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Thanks @Hicks_206 (DayZ).  This was a great explanation of the reasons for implementing the major changes in large chunks, rather than piecemeal as individual assets are completed.  So many people seem to have major issues with the frequency of updates, and just can't seem to understand that what they are asking would require massive amounts of features being reworked to agree with each other, each and every time any related technology is changed.  Your explanation was very specific in the second paragraph, regarding why putting things in one at a time would increase the total workload at an unreasonable rate.  You should sticky that post, or be prepared to have it copypasta'd numerous times in the coming months.

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Knowing how smaller scale early access game took a year to do a complete overhaul of their physics and rendering (DX9 -> DX11, 64-bit option, added modding support bit later, more detailed physics) it really doesn't surprise me DayZ taking this amount of time for these two major patches. They basically switch engine in the middle.

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18 hours ago, Hicks_206 (DayZ) said:

You're welcome to express your opinion here Just. There is nothing with your post that would get it sent to the graveyard .. with the exception of implying the developers are "lazy as fuck" - keep your criticism constructive and yourself open to discussion and you'll have no problem.

Couple things though - We're not a AAA title, nor is Bohemia a AAA studio. (Although I appreciate the implication from both :) ).

Additionally, as someone below mentioned - build numbers do not equal the amount of builds required to get to 1.0. It is merely a numerical byproduct of the build process that allows us to keep track of, and organize builds. To give you an example, I believe we hit Steam with .. 0.28? 

Yeah, but you guys were one of most sold games on Steam, doesn't that make you AAA?

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Didn't they put in a status report awhile ago that updates would get farther apart due to the things that would be worked and added and that those things were more complex and would take more time to finish and implement. well there's your answer OP read the status reports. I refuse to go through months' of them but it's there read read read.

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57 minutes ago, Just Caused said:

Yeah, but you guys were one of most sold games on Steam, doesn't that make you AAA?

Nah, just means DayZ was on everybody's minds.

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Or they could just half-ass it right send out an update broken to hell with half assed completed stuff or serious bugs then you folks would be in here saying why didn't they wait why didn't they test this how the hell could they update and do this to the game for christs sakes i demand a hotfix i demand that this game be done in a month and i want it perfect i am entitled to everything happening on my time frame right now dammit. too harsh?

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Tbh I don't think the devs can win with regards to updates.

If they take their time with an update people complain that the game is dying or the devs are lazy. If they pump out updates containing different clothes or new textures for buildings people will jump all over them in exactly the same way that they whinge when weapons or items are shown on trello, 'why aren't the devs fixing bugs, we don't need a million different t shirts.'

 

Hats off to Hicks, I appreciate him taking the time to explain things to people. It's great to see the devs taking more of an active stance on the forums.

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1 hour ago, stinkenheim said:

Tbh I don't think the devs can win with regards to updates.

If they take their time with an update people complain that the game is dying or the devs are lazy. If they pump out updates containing different clothes or new textures for buildings people will jump all over them in exactly the same way that they whinge when weapons or items are shown on trello, 'why aren't the devs fixing bugs, we don't need a million different t shirts.'

 

Hats off to Hicks, I appreciate him taking the time to explain things to people. It's great to see the devs taking more of an active stance on the forums.

But why is it taking them so long? I know programming is hard, but if they have enough, qualified workers, they should do this in less than 3 years. Are there enough workers working on DayZ? Are they qualified for this kind of job?

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1 hour ago, Just Caused said:

But why is it taking them so long? I know programming is hard, but if they have enough, qualified workers, they should do this in less than 3 years. Are there enough workers working on DayZ? Are they qualified for this kind of job?

Why should it take them less than three years?

And yes, they are going to be qualified workers and the project leads will likely feel they have enough staff for the development of this title.  If they don't then you outsource or hire additional people for the bits you need.

I think it's more than a little unfair to slate the competency of the development team because it isn't moving as fast as you want. In recent months the devs have been far more vocal in the reasons behind delays and issues. It's great seeing that increase in transparency. 

Check out some of the old videos, Chris torchia in particular spike about the difficulty of hiring a large number of new staff to work on the title. Just because the game made money doesn't mean that it should be done quickly, that's not how the real world works. 

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2 hours ago, Just Caused said:

But why is it taking them so long? I know programming is hard, but if they have enough, qualified workers, they should do this in less than 3 years. Are there enough workers working on DayZ? Are they qualified for this kind of job?

It's not like they are developing a new game using an existing engine, as most titles do.  They took an existing game that was already released to the public, and decided to build a completely new engine for it, and integrate it into the game in phases.

So instead of building a new house from the ground up, this is like taking an existing single story house, lifting it up and digging out a basement, pouring a new foundation, and adding a second story.  Of course it is going to take longer, and there is no point in re-roofing it before the second story is added.

Also, there's this post by Hicks, right from this thread, which explains it much better than my convoluted analogies ever could. 

 

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My only worry is that .61 will come out (And it'll be great, mind you), but .62 will take another 5-6 months before releasing. . Seriously hoping that their new engine is implemented well and updates can be easy peasy after that.

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4 hours ago, Just Caused said:

But why is it taking them so long? I know programming is hard, but if they have enough, qualified workers, they should do this in less than 3 years. Are there enough workers working on DayZ? Are they qualified for this kind of job?

Why do you think this should take less than 3 years?  How long do games take to develop normally?  How long does it take to develop a new game engine?  By what comparisons are you basing your time limit on?

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14 hours ago, Just Caused said:

But why is it taking them so long? I know programming is hard, but if they have enough, qualified workers, they should do this in less than 3 years. Are there enough workers working on DayZ? Are they qualified for this kind of job?

Your creeping towards absurdity.

"Are they qualified" is an ignorant statement.  I'm sure Bohemia are just grabbing bums and hobos off the streat and plopping them down at a PC to code.  

 

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To add to this discussion: I've worked at a company that didn't create games but they create software. They also were forced to rewrite old code into new code. It was so advanced that a whole team of people were already busy with it for 2 years when I started working there and still working on it when I left 3 years after. They even put a team of 6 people in a room for a year and it still wasn't done. The old code was like a million lines. It's not like they're translating old code, you need to rethink your old code which is probably more difficult than creating it from scratch. 

In those years there was basically a halt on new features and unimportant fixes as they all had to developed twice. Customers were getting angry and impatient, the internal employees didn't see an end to it but all the developers admitted it was needed. If I remember correctly DayZ is at least 2 million lines of code.

Kudos for keeping at it because it's at the very least an incredibly daunting task. 

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42 minutes ago, barelyinfected said:

To add to this discussion: I've worked at a company that didn't create games but they create software. They also were forced to rewrite old code into new code. It was so advanced that a whole team of people were already busy with it for 2 years when I started working there and still working on it when I left 3 years after. They even put a team of 6 people in a room for a year and it still wasn't done. The old code was like a million lines. It's not like they're translating old code, you need to rethink your old code which is probably more difficult than creating it from scratch. 

In those years there was basically a halt on new features and unimportant fixes as they all had to developed twice. Customers were getting angry and impatient, the internal employees didn't see an end to it but all the developers admitted it was needed. If I remember correctly DayZ is at least 2 million lines of code.

Kudos for keeping at it because it's at the very least an incredibly daunting task. 

Also stuffing 12+ more people in that room would probably just make it worse.
We all want the updates, but it just takes as long as it takes.
Other games out there in the mean time if it isn't fun to play in the current build.
If anything 0.60 showed us that it is worth the wait for sure.

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Not only that @barelyinfected & @Gobbokirk , but(correct me if iam wrong) isnt there alot of documentation that needs to be done for eachand every change?

(Then again, probably have ppl just for that :S)

 

Best Regards!

Edited by zemos (DayZ)

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